Month: January 2016

British singer David Bowie died Sunday at the age of 69 after an 18-month battle with cancer. The news was posted on the artist’s official social media accounts.

Bowie, who was born David Robert Jones in Brixton, south London, scored his first hit in 1969 with the song “Space Oddity.” Since then he secured an enduring fanbase with his early albums “The Man Who Sold the World” and “Hunky Dory.”The singer’s breakthrough didn’t happen until 1972, when he unveiled his alter ego, Ziggy Stardust, which catapulted him from “cult figure to rock icon.” Bowie made his last appearance as his alter ego at a London show on July 3 of that year. At one point during the 18-song set, he told the audience, “Of all the shows on the tour, this particular show will remain with us the longest, because not only is it the last show of the tour, it’s the last show we’ll ever do.”

In 1975, he achieved his first No. 1 hit in the U.S. with the song “Fame,” co-written by John Lennon.

Bowie also had a notable career on the silver screen, appearing in films such as “The Man Who Fell To Earth,” “Basquiat,” “The Prestige” and the cult-classic “Labyrinth,” in which he starred as Jareth the Goblin King.

Bowie was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996 and given the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2006

Bowie released his 25th album, “Blackstar,” on Jan. 8. Additionally, the musical “Lazarus,” which he co-wrote with playwright Enda Walsh and features old and new Bowie songs, opened in December to positive reviews. It earned bragging rights as the fastest-selling Off Broadway show ever, according to The New York Times.

Bowie is survived by his model wife, Iman, their daughter Alexandria Zahra Jones, and his filmmaker son Duncan Jones, from his first marriage to Mary Angela Bowie (née Barnett).

Say what you will about the Fifty Shades of Grey movie — the soundtrack is great. Like, really, truly, Beyoncé-is-on-this-thing great! But, while most of the film’s music paints in ~shades of lust~, Ellie Goulding’s contribution, “Love Me Like You Do,” is pure bliss. Built like a cathedral of synths, the song is toweringly romantic and unapologetically sweet.

Swoonworthy lyric: “You’re the light, you’re the night / You’re the color of my blood / You’re the cure, you’re the pain / You’re the only thing I wanna touch”

Selena Gomez transitioned into adult pop stardom this year with a whisper, not a shout. Literally. Her first post-Disney single — the hushed, R&B-inspired “Good for You” — is sung in a sexy, vowel-breaking whisper. The result is like pillow talk, only catchier.

Swoonworthy lyric: “Let me show you how proud I am to be yours / Leave this dress a mess on the floor / And still look good for you, good for you”

On “My Way” time slows to a syrupy wooze as the rapper tries to impress the object of his affection with come-on after come-on. It’s equal parts charming and desperate. It’s charmingly desperate. There’s something about Fetty Wap’s Auto-Tuned warbling that sounds like the way infatuation feels — uncontrollable and ecstatic.

Swoonworthy lyric: “I spotted you, you had that glow / Watch me pull out all this dough / Take you where you want to go”

Nobody crushes like Carly Rae Jepsen crushes. Fluttery feelings of romantic possibility take on cosmic shadings and become something grander in her hands. Three years ago, she made giving your phone number to a stranger sound fated on her bubblegum masterpiece, “Call Me Maybe,” and, this year, she’s imbued her best new song, “Run Away With Me,” a sax-inflected, end-of-the-night anthem, with a real sense of destiny.

Swoonworthy lyric: “Oh baby, take me to the feeling / I’ll be your sinner, in secret / When the lights go out / Run away with me”

Young love and teen angst collide on 5 Seconds of Summer’s “Vapor,” a pop-punk ballad about an intoxicatingly uncertain relationship. The track is full of drums, strings, and capital-F Feelings. The kind of big, bright, painful feelings that make adolescence feel so techno-colored and 5SOS so unbelievably popular.

Swoonworthy lyric: “I want to breathe you in like a vapor / I want to be the one you remember / I want to feel your love like the weather / All over me, all over me”

Blake Shelton’s “Sangria” is a sexy song. A sexy country song. Country music doesn’t usually excel as “sexy,” but “Sangria” does. There’s some racy electric guitar and Shelton dials down his swagger to an intimate come-on as he sings lines like “Your skin is begging to be kissed by a little more than the sun” and “Only thing I want to do tonight is drink you like a Spanish wine.” It’s a buzzed Mexican honeymoon in song form.

Don’t be fooled by the juvenile title: Melanie Martinez’s “Training Wheels” is loaded with grown-up ideas about love and trust. The 20-year-old pop singer quietly levels with her lover — “It’s not like I’m asking to be your wife / Wanna make you mine, but that’s hard to say” — over twinkly, music box–like production.

Swoonworthy lyric: “I love everything you do / When you call me fucking dumb for the stupid shit I do / Wanna ride my bike with you / Fully undressed, no training wheels left for you”

Is it any surprise that Troye Sivan’s songwriting made Taylor Swift lose her chill earlier this year? “For him.” is exactly the kind of diaristic love song that she loves (and is so good at). Bouncy, laid-back, and chock-full of super-specific details, “for him.” is, in a lot of ways, a downright Swiftian portrait of young love.

Swoonworthy lyric: “You don’t have to say I love you to say I love you / Forget all the shooting stars and all the silver moons / We’ve been making shades of purple out of red and blue”

Look, I’m not gonna lie: Chris Brown almost ruins this song. It’s a testament to Nicki Minaj and Meek Mill’s chemistry that he doesn’t. Instead of being a certified mess, “All Eyes on You” is actually pretty romantic! It’s fun to listen to an actual, real-life couple trade verses about their actual, real-life relationship.

Swoonworthy lyric: “I got him in the back of that ‘bach, I think he catchin’ feelings / Now it’s all eyes on us, and this all lies on trust / And if them bitches wanna trip, tell ‘em they tour guides on us”

If you lost your shit over Adele and her perfect voice this year, you should really make room in your playlists for Jazmine Sullivan. The chronically slept-on R&B singer has an equally impressive set of pipes and she really lets loose on “Let It Burn,” a velvety throwback jam that features some truly spectacular wailing and a ‘90s-era Babyface sample. All-consuming passion has never sounded cooler.

Swoonworthy lyric: “When it comes, you never wanna give it up / And, baby, I’m caught in the light and I ain’t gonna fight it / There’s no use in tryin’, I’m yours”

While “Rose Gold” seems ridiculous on paper — it’s Haylorfanfiction, loaded with allusions to 1989 — the song is, in practice, a sparse, surprisingly mature bit of a cappella. The Petatonix have been subverting expectations all year and “Rose Gold” is no exception.

Swoonworthy lyric: “Like a myth, the story of our lives / Couldn’t fit in only black and white / If it’s true that legends never die / Me and you could stand the test of time”

This is a song called “Coffee (Fucking)” from certified R&B sex god Miguel. What more could you want? What more could you possibly need? Assurances that the song lives up to its sexy and affectionate title? Well, OK, here they are: “Coffee (Fucking)” does, in fact, live up to its excellent title. It’s a sultry ode to nights when “pillow talk turns into sweet dreams” and “sweet dreams turns into fucking in the morning.” Would that we could all be so lucky!

Swoonworthy lyric: “I don’t wanna wake you / I just wanna watch you sleep / It’s the smell of your hair / And it’s the way that we feel / I’ve never felt comfortable like this”

Just this week, Three videos of Taylor swift performing at a mini-concert held at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles, California back in September. Taylor performed ‘Out of the Woods,’Wildest Dreams,’ and ‘Blank Space.’

The stripped down, acoustic versions of these songs were a throwback to Taylor’s singer-songwriter days and we loved every second of it.

On Tuesday (Jan. 5), Hollywood big shots flocked to a star-studded party hosted by Linda Perry in honor of the film Freeheld. Perry wrote a song for the movie, called “Hands of Love,” and it is vying for an Oscar nomination in the best original song category.

Perry brought several performer friends to the stage including Ian Astbury of The Cult, who sang David Bowie’s “Moonlight Daydream” and The Doors’ “Break On Through” in quick succession; Juliette Lewis, who delivered a fierce cover of AC/DC’s “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap;” and Love wowed with a version of Radiohead’s “Creep.”

Sixteen years after ‘N Sync dolls came to life in the video for “It’s Gonna Be Me,” Fall Out Boy explore what happens to the dollar bin toys in the video for the single “Irresistible” featuring Demi Lovato. ‘N Sync’s Chris Kirkpatrick and Joey Fatone make cameos in the clip.

‘What if in the NSYNC video for It’s Gonna Be Me there was an analog to the story?,’ explains the video’s caption. ‘Where in the same store there was a dollar bin full of toys that no one really wanted that would band together like the misfit, offbrand little outsiders they were. ‘Irresistible is the video for that story, it’s about the toys no one ever wanted come to life.’

Interspersed between the music video’s storyline, Demi rocks out to the track alongside Fall Out Boy members Patrick Stump, 31, Pete Wentz, Andy Hurley, and Joe Trohman.